Todd, I'll be you half a peach that your mystery shiners are Alabamas. Your
description could work for my Alabamas, except that my alpha male is fully
tuberculated now. The Tallapoosa really does look different from your
description. Hopefully you'll see a bunch of Alabamas this weekend in the
Sipsey system...

--Bruce Stallsmith
but, no Alabamas in the Tennessee
Huntsville, AL, US of A

>From: "Todd D. Crail" <tcrail-in-UTNet.UToledo.Edu>>Reply-To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org>To: <nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org>>Subject: NANFA-L-- Alabama Cyprinella>Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 17:47:37 -0500>>Hi gang,>>I'm trying to figure out what we caught here... Back in late January, a >friend and I made a suicide run to Alabama over a weekend (yes down Friday >night, back Sunday night) to try and get more information about the >"southern walleye" from the Mobile Basin... Catching some "bait", using a >school van with school gas was the <ahem> incentive to do such a ridiculous >thing. One might also call it "Ice Madness".>>Our target was Hatchet Creek in Coosa County, running into Lake Mitchell >from the east, which Lake Mitchell is an impoundment on the Coosa proper.>>Anyway... We brought back some Cyprinella that we assumed were blackspot >shiners, C. venusta. Upon review, as I'm preparing for Jeff G and my >invasion of the central SE next week... Completely disagree with that >identification. In the mix were definate tricolor shiners, C. >trichroistia (what a lovely fish), and there _may_ have been blackspots. >But the ones that made it home we were calling blackspots... Ain't no way >they're blackspots.>>They have bright red inter-dorsal membranes framed by jet black, are >getting redish tails, and a pinkish hue to their pelvic and anal fins. The >tail spot is nearly symetrically oblong and quite prominent in comparison >to the tricholor.>>I'm leaning toward the Alabama shiner, C. callistia, but I'm not sure that >we can rule out the Tallapoosa shiner, C. gibbsi, even though it's not >supposed to be up there, but is darn close?>>The Natureserve and FO TN and AL pictures don't really solve much either. >None of the pictures have red in the dorsal, and this is really, to our >eyes, this fish's most prominent color feature.>>Any ideas? I can get shots, but I am really running short on time this >week, and live, wiley cyprinids are such a PITA to photograph.>>Thanks for any ideas. It may come that we'll have to go back down there >and look again (oh darn! :) and have Prez give 'em a looky.>>Todd>The Muddy Maumee Madness, Toledo, OH>It's never too late to have a happy childhood.>http://www.farmertodd.com

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